Morse Identifies Loopholes in CRC Regulations

“If you move stuff offshore, you will have a considerable power saving. The CRC has two impacts. One it could mean that it is a yet another influencing factor to make companies consider moving their infrastructure to India for example,” said Murray. “And the second is if a power hungry company is considering moving to the UK, they do not know how much the CRC is going to change over the next few years (with potentially stiffer targets etc). I personally know of two IT player that have already moved their data centres overseas.

“The CRC absolutely needs to be amended,” Murray said. “I understand the government’s process to get to CRC, as IT is one of the biggest causes of carbon emissions at number 3. However number two is transport and number one is land use, which the government seems to have ignored.

“The government is not talking about energy efficiency with the CRC, it is talking about energy consumption and, as a result, they have lost track of the underlying principles involved,” said Murray. “If it is about energy efficiency, they need to take renewable energy into account and find some way of measuring the power efficiency of an organisation, which is not easy to do. They have lost their way a bit from principle to implementation.

“The UK is very much setting a trend here, and the CRC is being looked at by our European neighbours and in the US, the Obama camp is considering it, but as the industry there is so against it, it will likely change,” said Murray. “By the time countries such as the Netherlands or Germany or the Isle of Man follow suite, they will have better thought out their equivalent of the CRC regulations.

“There is absolutely a lack of awareness about the CRC rules, which I think is a reflection of the consultation process and the people involved in it,” said Murray. “I am not sure of where they got that list from, but there was not nearly enough consultation with the IT and data centre industry, and I am not sure how comprehensive the consultation process was.”

Murray believes it is vital that the industry pushes for amendments to the bill. “I have been in touch with the BCS and Offshoring Association, both of whom are against the bill, but they are at the end of their thether as they haven’t got any joy out of the government about changes.”